China Cultures,Chinese Culture Info

First National Ice Dragon-boat Race is going to be held on Sunday in Yinchuan, capital city of northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

According to the source from Yinchuan Bureau of Sports, the race is jointly sponsored by General Administration of Sports of China, Ningxia Bureau of Sports and Yinchuan Municipal Government.

The race features three speed events: 12-men’s 250-meter direct route race, 12-women’s 250-meter direct route race and 5-family 150-meter race, said Duo Yongyi, director of Yinchuan Bureau of Sports.

“It has attracted not only 38 professional teams from Shanghai, Guangdong, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, etc., but also over 100 ice sports lovers,” Duo added.

Yinchuan, renowned for its “72 rivers” in history, boasts many natural lakes and rivers. Two local Ice Dragon-boat Races were held in Yinchuan from 2010 to 2011.

With Spring Festival starting half a month before usual this year, Chinese travel agencies are set to enjoy an earlier hot season from the outbound tourism business.

Some travel agencies have already sold out the seats available to outbound tourism groups during the Spring Festival, which starts on Jan 23.

“Except for some tour groups to Hong Kong and Macao, all of our outbound tourism groups ceased receiving applications by the first week of the new year, because the quota is almost full,” said Li Meng, deputy manager of China International Travel Service Co Ltd’s outbound tourism department.

The Chinese traditionally spend the festival with their families. In recent years, more and more families are deciding that they would like to travel overseas together for the holiday rather than simply stay at home, Li said.

“Our festival customers are mainly traveling with their families this year,” Li said.

In a survey report from Tuniu.com, a website used to book trips, 37 percent of 500 respondents said they plan to travel with their families during the festival.

Song Qing, an office worker in Beijing, will spend the festival in Thailand with her husband and parents.

“I want to stay with my family during this rare bit of time off,” she said. “But I also want this traditional festival to be a little different from the past.”

Statistics from the National Tourism Administration suggest that the number of travelers going on outbound trips during the Spring Festival will increase by up to 60 percent – depending on the destination – above what the percentages were for the same holiday in 2011.

Europe, the United States, Africa and Australia are the most popular among Chinese residents, according to the administration.

Beijing UTour International Travel Service Co Ltd, one of the largest organizers of outbound trips in China, said the number of customers it helps go to Europe will increase by 50 percent, and the number to the United States by 20 percent, above what both were for the 2011 Spring Festival.

The increasing number of Chinese residents traveling overseas is encouraging some Western stores to offer special goods and services to them.

The luxury store Harrods in London has released a collection of investment-grade gold bars, each with a dragon inscribed on it.

“Gold is a very special purchase in the Year of the Dragon, so we are very proud to offer our Chinese customers the very best ingots,” said Chris Hall, head of Harrods Gold Bullion. “The Harrods Gold Bullion service is extremely popular with investors.”

Selfridges, also a luxury department store in central London’s Bond Street, has erected a large dragon in its main hall to greet visitors.

The Chinese tourism authority forecast that the price of outbound tours during the festival has increased by 10 to 40 percent, driven largely by the rising cost of plane tickets and accommodations overseas.

The price of going to Australia is nearly 3,000 yuan ($475) higher and is greater than that of going to other destinations. That distinction results largely from Australia being in the midst of its summer, making it an attractive place to travel to, according to business insiders.

The cost, meanwhile, of being part of tour groups that go to certain islands – Maldives, Bali, Phuket Island and others – has increased by 20 to 30 percent above what it was in the same period of 2011, said Zhang Lei, general manager of UTour travel service.

The high prices have not stopped Chinese travelers from wanting to go on those trips, as evidenced by the doubling in the number of applications for the island tours, Zhang added.

Travel agencies will enjoy the surge in business but will also have to cope with a longer off-season than in other years.

Beijing plans to attract more than 180,000 exchange students in 2020, an increase of 112 percent over the current number, according to the municipal educational bureau.

A plan recently issued by the bureau aims to explore a new way to administer exchange students and provide better services for students who wish to study here in the coming years.

“Overseas students could have Chinese roommates while they study in Beijing, this could allow them to study together for the purpose of strengthening cultural exchanges,” an official with the educational bureau said, adding that most overseas students don’t have Chinese roommates at present.

Beijing will increase overseas enrollment in the next nine years, promote cooperation between schools in Beijing and abroad and offer more summer and winter educational programs for overseas students, according to the plan.

Official statistics show that 81 universities in Beijing hosted exchange students from 184 countries last year.

A Chinese New Year Concert was held Thursday evening at the Vienna Musikverein, with Chinese American pianist Yin Chengzong bringing his renowned piece “The Yellow River Piano Concerto” again to the Austrian audience after 53 years.

Yin made his first visit to Austria in 1959 when he won an award at the World Youth Peace and Friendship Festival.

Zhang Mingmin, the first Hong Kong singer performing in the Chinese mainland, is another highlight of the concert. This time he brought “My Chinese Heart”, the song that gave him instant fame and made him a household name in China, to Vienna to the musical accompaniment of the Austrian Franz Lehar Orchestra.

“The Drunken Beauty”, “I Love You, China”, “O Sole Mio”, ” Libiamo Ne’ Lieti Calici” from La Traviata, and many other Chinese and world classics were also performed at the concert.

The Chinese New Year Concert was jointly organized by Chinese Cultural Association in Austria, Austria-China Friendship Association and the Center of International Cultural Exchange, Ministry of Culture of China.

The concert has been held at the Vienna Muskiverein for the 14th consecutive year since 1998. It has become a brand name of Chinese culture in Austria.

Canada Post issued on Tuesday a pair of dragon stamps to mark the Chinese Lunar New Year, part of celebrations of the upcoming Year of the Dragon.

The newly unveiled dragon stamps are the fourth release in a new 12-year Chinese Lunar New Year series. Staring from 1997, Canada Post releases Spring Festival stamps each year.

The new stamps include one domestic postage stamp and one international postage stamp. On the domestic stamp is a black, powerful imperial five-toe dragon with scales decorated with gold foil.

The international stamp is painted with the head of a roaring fire dragon, also decorated with gold foil vividly.

Both stamps are set in traditional Chinese red, a color representing good luck and happiness in Chinese culture. The Chinese characters in the top right corner of the domestic stamp and the top left corner of the international one spell out “dragon.”

The design of the five-toe dragon was inspired by traditional Chinese paper-cutting. Swirls, a graphic element from ancient Chinese designs, are placed at the bottom of the stamp to represent the water element, as the coming year of the dragon is a year of the water dragon.

It took Canadian graphic designer Louis Fishauf nearly two years to complete the creation. As a Western artist, Fishauf has managed to include as many Chinese elements as possible in his creation.

Fishauf admitted his challenge was to understand the essence of Chinese culture, and said it was a great honor and privilege to be a designer of Lunar New Year stamps.

He hoped his latest design “will resonate for the Chinese community as well as the Canadian market.”

Jim Phillips, director of Stamp Services at Canada Post, said the national carrier is proud to celebrate Chinese Lunar New Year by issuing these stamps — one of the very important and popular issues.

In Canada’s multicultural society, issuing Lunar New Year stamps also helps people from other ethnic groups to understand Chinese culture, Phillips said. For the past years, these striking stamps have enjoyed great success.

Canada Post issues 5.25 million of the domestic stamps and 500,000 international versions. The related products include a transitional collectible that features both Rabbit and Dragon international stamps.

Zeng Jie practices his performing skills in Zhejiang Kunqu Troupe in Hangzhou, capital of east China’s Zhejiang Province, Dec. 8, 2011. Thirty-year-old Zeng Jie became well-known during the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony in 2008. Selected as the only traditional Chinese Kunqu performer, he presented millions of viewers around the globe with beauty and elegance of the oldest extant forms of Chinese opera. When the curtain fell, Zeng’s life returned to usual routines in the east China’s Zhejiang Province. As a contracted actor in Zhejiang Kunqu Troupe, he works hard to sharpen his skills and performs every now and then to make a living. He also teaches a body training class as a part-time teacher in his alma mater hoping in what he said to “feed back” to his fellow school. Originated from China’s late Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), Kunqu dominated Chinese theatre from the 16th to the 18th centuries and it was regarded as the “mother” of a hundred operas including the famous Peking Opera. Kunqu was listed as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO since 2001.

2011 witnessed dramatic changes in the country’s publishing and reading scene. With the rise of e-publishing, traditional publishers faced the real danger of losing out in a new era, as highlighted by the theme of two key publishers’ gatherings.

The Beijing International Publishing Forum and China Book International’s Foreign Experts Seminar – both staged in August – focused on e-publishing.

At the same time, traditional bookstores are closing down, while others struggle to survive.

The good news is that the number of readers is on the rise.

Writers’ Rich List producer Wu Huaiyao says that’s judging from his fieldwork in publishing, more Chinese are habitual readers, thanks to the adoption of e-reading devices.

As for the literature itself, Chen Fumin, with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, says established writers are more concerned with down to earth topics relevant to society.

“Some of them are really as good as the older generation,” Chen says, of younger writers. “They just need time to be better known.”

Top 10 Books (in alphabetical order)

China in Revolution: The Road to 1911

By Liu Heung Shing (World Publishing Corporation)

Pulitzer-winning photographer Liu Heung Shing pays tribute to the 1911 Revolution to celebrate its 100th anniversary this year.

China Shock

By Zhang Weiwei (Shanghai People’s Publishing House)

The author, a Geneva-based researcher of international relations, was formerly China’s top leaders’ translator/interpreter. Zhang expands the ideas of the “China Model” and concludes “no other countries have made the people better off quicker than China”.

Dead End, third book of the Three Body Trilogy

By Liu Cixin (Chongqing Publishing House)

Hailed as the first writer of Chinese science-fiction, Liu Cixin ends the trilogy about a Chinese scientist saving the world from being flattened into two dimensions.

Divine Redolence

By Wang Anyi (People’s Literature Publishing House)

The novel reflects Chinese folk life in Shanghai through the rise and fall of the Shen family during the late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

Inmate Lu Yanshi

By Yan Geling (Writers’ Publishing House)

The latest novel by the Chinese-American writer is based on her grandfather and was a work of self-discovery.

My Village, My Country

By Xiong Peiyun (New Star Press)

Taking his hometown, Xiaobao village in Jiangxi province, as a sample, columnist Xiong Peiyun explores China’s rural villages and where the country is heading in this essay collection.

Old Kiln

By Jia Pingwa (People’s Literature Publishing House)

The author reveals in the novel the trajectory of the “cultural revolution” (1966-76) at a mostly grassroots level. It was awarded “Best Novel of the Year” by the prestigious Dangdai magazine.

Record of Zhu Rongji’s Speeches

By Zhu Rongji (People’s Publishing House)

The four-volume book is a collection of Zhu Rongji’s talks from 1991 to 2003, when he served as the vice-premier and premier of the country. Marked by his signature bluntness, the book reveals untold stories of China’s social, economic and political reforms that Zhu was leading.

Southern Spring

By Ge Fei (Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House)

Southern Spring centers on the life of a middle-aged couple, poet Tan Duanwu and lawyer Pang Jiayu. Their spiritual quest over the past two decades reveals problems confronted by individuals in an era of dramatic changes.

Tiny Times 3.0

By Guo Jingming (Changjiang Literature and Arts Press)

Guo Jingming is one of the country’s most influential young writers. Tiny Times 3.0 centers on four young people’s entangled lives in Shanghai.

2011′s Top Three Translated Books:

China in Innovation: The Chengdu Triangle

By John and Doris Naisbitt (Jilin Publishing House, All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce Press)

The futurist and author of Megatrends examines the pioneering solutions of Chengdu in urban-rural integration.

1Q84: Book 3

By Haruki Murakami (Nanhai Publishing Ltd)

Murakami is a widely loved Japanese writer in China. His new series, with a sci-fi touch, is reviving interest among Chinese readers, following his immensely popular Norwegian Wood.

Steve Jobs: A Biography

By Walter Isaacson (Citic Press)

The book is a timely publication after the legendary Apple founder Steve Jobs’ death in October, and is the only authorized version of Jobs’ life.

The list is based on other newspapers’ book lists, and China Daily’s interviews with publishers and critics.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) said Wednesday it will make further efforts to regulate the reference book market for primary and high school students by imposing stricter supervision on publication and distribution channels.

In a report submitted by Minister of Education Yuan Guiren to a legislative session of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, the ministry stated it will continue working with the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) to strengthen regulations on the editing, printing, and distribution of student’s reference books.

According to Yuan, education departments at all levels are not allowed to force students or schools to purchase reference books, and schools should not force students to buy those books.

In China, it is common for students in primary and middle schools to do a large amount of after-class study and testing to get better exam scores, which has resulted in a booming market for reference books and workbooks and test books.

Some publishing houses, book dealers and schools are blamed for seeking illegal kickbacks by forcing students to buy certain reference books.

Southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region plans to set up 251 new kindergartens offering education in both Mandarin and the Tibetan language next year, the regional government said Tuesday.

The statement was made during an economic conference in Lhasa, in which the government promised to increase the region’s spending on education and to promote bilingual preschool education in its farming and herding areas.

According to the plan, Tibet will enroll 15,000 rural children into bilingual kindergartens in 2012, said Chen Quanguo, secretary of the Tibetan Regional Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

By 2015, the two-year bilingual preschool education shall cover most of the region’s rural areas, Chen said.

Tibet has already implemented bilingual preschool education in its cities and counties and is working to expand such kindergartens into the region’s vast countryside starting this year.

In an earlier statement, education authorities said preschool education shall be made free for all children in rural Tibet by 2015.

Tuition fees, as well as food and lodging expenses on campus, have been free for all primary and secondary school students from Tibetan herders’ families since 1985.

Baima Temple, the oldest Buddhist temple in China, will see a new exotic shrine, funded by the Myanma government, rise in its courtyard next year, local religious affairs authorities said.

Construction on the shrine, which will be designed, funded and built by the government of Myanmar, will begin in April next year, said an official with the religious affairs bureau in Luoyang, capital city of central Henan province, where the temple is located.

The 1,943-year-old Baima Temple, or White Horse Temple, is the first Buddhist temple in China and is considered “the cradle of Chinese Buddhism” by most believers.

The 35-million-yuan project (about 5.56 million U.S. dollars), which will include a shrine, a pagoda and a museum, will cover an area of 7,000 square meters, and construction is expected to take about 18 months, the official said.

In order to make the shrine in a genuine Myanma style, most of the materials and decorations will be shipped from Myanmar.

The Myanmar Buddha hall will not be the temple’s first exotic shrine, as it is already home to an Indian shrine and a Thai shrine.